Queen on Application of Qureshi & Others v HM Courts & Tribunal Service
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Cranston |
| Judgment Date | 26 July 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 4694 (Admin) |
| Docket Number | CO/8182/2013 CO/8181/2013 CO/9103/2013 CO/8865/2013 CO/9908/2012 CO/3746/2013 CO/12699/2012 CO/10184/2012 CO/9357/2013 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 26 July 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 4694 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Cranston
CO/8182/2013
CO/10732/2012
CO/8181/2013
CO/9103/2013
CO/8865/2013
CO/9908/2012
CO/3746/2013
CO/12699/2012
CO/10184/2012
CO/9357/2013
The Claimants were not represented, did not attend
Miss Melanie Cumberland (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) appeared on behalf of the Defendants
Mr Winston Leachman has made an application to set aside a Noueiri order which I made on 27 February 2013. I made this order against him to prevent him assisting the claimants. The result of the order is that he cannot act for others without the permission of the court. Notwithstanding that order, Mr Leachman has continued to assist claimants.
On 2 July, I directed that an oral hearing be conducted to consider Mr Leachman's application to set aside the Noueiri order and I asked that HM Courts & Tribunal Service be represented. They are represented by Miss Cumberland who provided an extremely helpful bundle and skeleton argument for the court. Mr Justice Stuart-Smith also made an order on 11 July in relation to Mr Leachman and warned him that he could be in contempt of court.
This morning Mr Leachman has not appeared. He has knowledge of this morning's hearing. On 14 and 16 July letters were sent to him referring to the hearing. On 17 July there was a telephone conversation between him and one of the senior legal managers in the Administrative Court, in the course of which he complained that the attendance of eight people would be required should he attend. It would have been desirable for Mr Leachman to have attended court this morning because I would have been able to hear his submissions in relation to the setting aside of the Noueiri order and in relation to the applications made by HM Courts & Tribunal Service in relation to amendments to that order.
In R (On the Application of Kumar) v Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs [2006] EWCA Civ 990, the judgment of the court was given by Lord Justice Brooke. He said in relation to the consideration of a Civil Restraint Order, which is a parallel type of proceeding:
"75 ….. If the facts are clear and simple enough it may be appropriate for the court to proceed to make the order immediately ….. "
In my view, this is a case where the facts are clear and simple. There is no need to adjourn the matter. It is entirely appropriate that it be heard in the absence of Mr Leachman who, aware of the hearing, has decided to absent himself.
Background: 1997–2011
Mr Leachman is no stranger to these courts. In a hearing in October 1997 before a Divisional Court (CO/3052/1997), Mr Leachman applied for a writ of Habeas Corpus. In effect, he made a number of complaints concerning his arrest and trial in 1991 on a charge of obtaining property by deception. At trial, he was convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. He had unsuccessfully applied for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal. His complaint before the Divisional Court was that he had been wrongly imprisoned as a result of the trial. In giving judgment, Mr Justice Gage said:
"He is no stranger to this court. He has endeavoured to represent others on applications of writs of Habeas Corpus and in March 1997 he appeared before a Divisional Court, comprised of my Lord, Lord Justice Brooke, and Mr Justice Blofeld. He sought to represent a man named Smith. The application was refused by the court. The applicant must have been told on a number of occasions that a writ of Habeas Corpus will only issue for someone at the time of detention. Unfortunately he does not seem to understand that ….. He has told us he was under detention for a restraint, and he told us that he was released from prison as long ago as 1994. His application is, in my judgment, hopeless and misconceived."
Mr Leachman's next appearance, which appears on Casetrack, is in Case No. CO/4431/1997. He appeared before the Divisional Court comprised of Lord Justice Simon Brown and Mr Justice Mance. Despite the earlier ruling, he had lodged a further application for Habeas Corpus which was the fourth application he had made before the court. Lord Justice Simon Brown said:
"We are told that he frequently telephones the Crown Office staff. He harangues them, he abuses them, he demands that they arrange immediate hearings for his applications ….. this applicant has alas become a real nuisance and he must now be stopped. The end of the road has been reached …..
Having briefly heard the applicant today, we are strongly confirmed in our view both that his applications constitute a plain abuse of process and that a more than usually firm Order is now required to prevent such abuse continuing in the future."
The court dismissed the application and directed that no further such application be made which arose in any way out of his 1993 conviction. Moreover, he was only to communicate with the Crown Office in writing.
In 2011, Mr Leachman renewed an application to appeal well out of time to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) following a refusal by the single judge: [2011] EWCA Crim 507. Mr Leachman had pleaded guilty on arraignment at the Crown Court in Southwark to three counts of providing immigration advice when not qualified to do so, and providing immigration services when not qualified to do so. A further four counts on the indictment were ordered to remain on the file.
The background was that Mr Leachman had never been qualified to give immigration advice. But there was a period when he traded under the name of "Romford Independent Legal Advice Centre" based at his home address. He would give advice either face-to-face or over the telephone.
In its judgment, the Court of Appeal gave examples. What he was doing was applying for indefinite leave to remain on behalf of persons in this country. One paid him the sum of £585 in order for him to do that. He lodged an application on her behalf but did not pay the appropriate fee. The money was never returned. There are two other cases of applications to extend work permits where on each occasion he obtained £1,200 from each applicant. Although he lodged letters, he did so without the appropriate and proper documents. Clients trying to contact his address or to telephone him found it virtually impossible to obtain redress.
The Office of the Immigration Services Commission investigated and the results of that led to the prosecution. On 28 April His Honour Judge Robbins imposed a twelve-month sentence suspended for two years on each count concurrent, an order of 150 hours unpaid work, compensation of £1,635 and prosecution costs in the order of £7,965.
In his out-of-time applications Mr Leachman made various submissions, for example that the indictment was defective and that the trial judge had exceeded his jurisdiction. In giving the judgment of the court, His Honour Judge Barker QC said:
"We make this general observation that the Immigration & Asylum Act 1999 under which these allegations were brought was designed to stop certain unscrupulous people taking advantage of such vulnerable applicants who might have been provided erroneous and spurious advice and taking from them large sums of money ….. When considering the case of Mr Leachman, it seems that he has fallen four-square within various sections of the Act. He, at no time, has ever been qualified to give the sort of advice that he was purporting to give. Those clients that went to him were entitled to protection which ….. is provided for in the Immigration & Asylum Act."
The application was dismissed.
The Events of 2013
We come to 2013. In February 2013, I dealt with five applications for permission to apply for judicial review. They have a resounding similarity in referring, for example, to Magna Carta and to rights as a freeman of the land. These cases were: Mozam Ali (CO/11042/2012), the four applications were by Raja Sani Khan (CO/ 11656, CO/ 11657 and CO/ 11724, CO/ 11725). I refused those applications, as entirely without merit. None have been renewed. There was a sixth application issued by Mr Khan (CO/10732/2012) which should have been dealt with at the same time. I refused permission on 8 May. There has been no renewal of that application.
In February, as I have described, I issued a Noueiri order against Mr Leachman. In that order I referred to the five cases — CO/1723/2012, CO/1724/2012, CO/1165/2012, CO/1166/2012 CO/1167/2012 — and noted that Mr Leachman had come to the counter of the court office of the Administrative Court and assisted Mr Khan on each occasion. I also noted that in two other cases — one in the name of Paul Cottee CO/9908/2012 and another in the name of Roger Hamza Berkeley CO/10184/2012 — Mr Leachman had also come to the Administrative Court to assist those applicants making their claims.
I then made the order that Mr Leachman be restrained from taking steps in the Administrative Court to act on behalf of any person other than himself save with the leave of the court. I gave liberty to apply. It is as a result of that that the application came before the court today.
On 11 July 2013, Mr Justice Stuart-Smith ordered that applications for permission [to] apply for judicial review by Boatang (CO/8181/2013) and Qureshi (CO/8182/2013) be listed (1) along with the application for my Noueiri order to be set aside, and (2) whether the court should consider hearing whether...
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